Australis Doctrina
by Catherine or Cate
Summary: Explaination fic. to my little corner of the Potter world. Will mainly be used in connection with other fics I've yet to publish. AU. Watch out for Harrison Black - Coming Soon.


III

Australis Doctrina

III

Her many halls are empty but still like new. Her buildings stands proudly, looking as if they were built only yesterday. The air smells of tropical flowers and the sea, like it always has, with the occasional whiff of eucalyptus. She is 'Nicola'. She is Australis Doctrina.

She had been told, and heard many times from the students that the chain of islands she rested upon was found in the year fourteen seventy two (1472) by the great wizarding explorer William Horace Eucalypt. There were eight islands in the Nicola Chain located on the Great Barrier Reef, off the Australian North- East coast.

Nicola, the name given to the personality of the school, continues to ensure that she is the best institution for education in the world. The school buildings continue to amaze the young and old, witches and wizards who all live there. Nicola is the one who has, and always will watch over them and anyone who is touched by the island.

The school, Australis Doctrina is built on three of the pockets of land. The most northern island is a teensy tiny triangle, and uninhabited, as wild as Nicola's confidence and exuberance allows. The second island is a hexagonal shape and that is the first of the Australis Doctrina Institute islands. It is where the staff live, each in their own bungalow, uniform on the outside, built from white sandstone and the rich red and brown timber of the tall trees named after the first man to find this area. Inside, each bungalow is a staff members own, decorated to their own taste and style. 

The next medium sized island is a round- cornered triangle, where all the students live. There are three towers with a courtyard in the middle. The towers are externally identical, built with the same white sandstone and eucalypt woods. The sandstone and wood which also makes up the inside of each tower is enhanced and decorated according the house colours of the students living within each of the houses being represented by a different colour; ochre, eucalypt green or deep ocean blue. The towers each have eight levels; the ground floor which is a study area, and then the dormitories on the other levels. The first and second year boys are on the first floor, the first and second year girls are on the second. The pattern continues up the tower with the third and fourth year boys on the third level and then the girls on the next. The fifth and sixth floors house the fifth and sixth boys and the equivalent girls respectively. The seventh years, the leaders of the school, all inhabit on one floor. There are seven live in tutors for each house who live with the students in the towers. 

The next huge, kidney bean shaped island is where Nicola's school classrooms are located along with the sprawling grounds, the sports facilities, the library, the greenhouses, the small zoo, dining areas and all the other required areas. The last four scalene triangular islands are medium to small in size. The one closest to the school is the 'Muggle' settlement where witches and wizards live without magic. The next three compose a wizarding village with one whole island dedicated to shops, which Nicola knew the students loved to visit.

The wizarding community and school had flourished since fourteen seventy- nine, the year the school had opened, becoming and remaining the most prestigious wizarding institute in the southern hemisphere, something Nicola was extremely proud of.

Nicola had known that the explorer Eucalypt was a keen student and had wanted to establish an equal learning environment of the islands he had found. It was after him the oldest house of Australis Doctrina was named and the eucalypt green colour dedicated and worn proudly by students. The students of this house, Nicola noted with pride were often like the wizard their school house was named after, fearless with a love of searching whether it be for knowledge or adventure.

The second house was named after the constructor of the school and initial community, Sandrine Slytherin- Gryffindor. The educator had been disowned by her family for loving and marrying one of their enemies so she and her husband had fled to the safety of the islands. The Slytherin- Gryffindor children were the first born on the islands and Nicola had a soft spot for them and many of their descending family members. They were intelligent, honourable, but misunderstood people again like their founder. The colour of Slytherin House is dark blue, the colour of the ocean at its deepest point to signify the seemingly endless depths to every thing and everyone.

The third and final house was named after the schools first headmaster, Professor Alexander Dumbledore, a man with big dreams for the wizarding world. He and every Dumbledore student have a sense of house unity and pride and are hardworking putting one hundred and ten percent effort, every time. To signify his house Dumbledore chose the ruddy hues of ochre to create balance within the school.

Nicola knew that when her beloved students, people she had watched grow from children to young adults, left her watchful presence they were the easily describable as the most well rounded young wizards and witches on the planet. She would watch every year as the students of Australis Doctrina attended to their magical and non-wizarding studies before spending their weekends roaming over their tropical playground. They would descend on the shopping isle, play quidditch, surf, scuba dive and snorkel in the clear Australian waters, take lesson to learn to drive motor vehicles, study languages in special extra curricular classes, learn to travel by magical means, train in sports for the Annual Magical School Games.

Nicola would watch and in her own way comfort in every way she could as the students fought, formed friendship and relationships, studied, stressed, experienced emotional highs, and lows and in the midst completed their education. Finally, after seven years of magical education, completing international exams during their fifth and seventh years and time in their sixth year to participate in practical assessments where the students would spend time living in muggle and magical communities, Nicola would watch every Slytherin- Gryffindor, Dumbledore and Eucalypt graduate before their peers, professors, friends and family. And of course her sentient spirit that loved everyone of them.

Shaking herself from her reminiscing, Nicola brought her attention back to the dock were the newest group of students were arriving, for the very first time. As she looked down at their young faces her heart expanded a little more, ready, and willing to accept the young scholars. 

It was going to be a good year, an eventful year, as always.

III


End file.
